Re: Bug#354995: amd64-k8-smp kernel makes clock run fast

[Andrew Burns <home@a-burns.com>]

I have been fighting the same problem for several months now and only
today solved the problem.

My machine is an emachines model T6212 and has a ATI graphics card as
well SIS network card.  I mention this because on a number of posts in
the net concerning this issue these two pieces of hardware (as well as
NVIDIA graphics cards) are cited as being part of / associated with the
problem.

After trying a very large number of suggested changes -- most involving
altering the boot line to the kernel with flags such as noapic nolapic
apic apic=noirq no_timer_check etc.  I found a solution (at least for
me).

A post somewhere mentioned that this was not a software problem (or at
least no a kernel problem) per se.  Rather it was a BIOS problem and
that upgrading the system BIOS would solve the problem.

I went to the manufacturer's web site and sure enough there was a bios
patch available that corrected for a problem associated with NVIDIA
graphics cards.

I downloaded it, flashed my BIOS and amazingly enough my system has been
keeping perfect time since.

Hope this works for you.

Andrew Burns